DISQUS

Older_Wiser · 10 months ago

Has Paulson gone back to working for GS yet? Or is his half a billion dollar fortune enough? Goldman Sachs is one investment bank that didn't even need the money in the first place (actually, none of them did--they should have taken their lumps with their bad management practices), but Paulson "forced" it on them. Not surprising that GS is now backing off and paying the money back; expect more to do the same as their lollipop compensation is taken away.

Oh, I've got friends in high places...

DCinDC · 10 months ago

The GOP has made a mess of the United States. The GOP policies and ideas never work when actually implemented. Let the GOP know if they do not start to get some things right on the first call soon, we will vote the GOP bums out!

example · 10 months ago

Hah! I guess that's one example of tarp being so necessary.

On the other hand, we should be glad they can give back the money.

Phil · 10 months ago

My guess is that a lot of them will start paying it back in a big hurry, given the pay restrictions. What a surprise......

Indigo · 10 months ago

This is a good omen! If they really needed the money or thought the Republican Depression would be long-lasting, they would keep a low profile. Hopping off the gravy train tells us that they're not in such bad shape after all, the economy is going to turn around within six to eight months, and there's a whole lot less to this crisis than their media hypsters would have us believe.

caphillprof · 10 months ago

This has the smell of fraud.

GrMtGirl3 · 10 months ago

Amen . . . If it was enacted under Republicans you can bet your bottom dollar fruad took place. These rich sob's just line each others pockets!

SeekTheTruth · 10 months ago

So let them get off the corporate welfare and pay their idiots whatever they want, and rise and fall accordingly.

Can't you see they are doing us a favor, Chris?

I swear, the principles on this site sound more shrill and whiny every day. WE WON. Relax just a half-inch.

vkobaya · 10 months ago

Doesn't this mean Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley committed tens of billions of dollars in fraud in accepting the bailout money in the first place. And that Paulson also was guilty of major fraud simply enriching his buddies when they didn't need the money. Hey! I don't need the money either. Hit me with about $20-30 billion dollars. <g>

GrMtGirl3 · 10 months ago

Could be accepting TARP money when not needed is fruad . . . but nothing will be done because we are talking about RICH REPUBLICANS. They are exempt from following the law!

DenCO · 10 months ago

While I agree with most of the post, there is one issue that I wanted to point out. Since GS and MS accepted the initial TARP money, they have both become Bank Holding Companies, which will require them to keep more capital on their books than they did before as pure play investment banks. This will force them to drop the more risky/higher return deals they did in the past and should help curb some of the abuses.

truefish · 10 months ago

I think goldman got money from AIG (its counterparty) who also got bailed out from the government. Now they are paying this money back to government to get out of salary restrictions? :-)

RDS · 10 months ago

Note to wingnuts: Obama gettin' yo tax dollah backs to ya's.

BostonJoe · 10 months ago

Wouldn't it be funny if we find out there were rules to the original Tarp Funds. Otherwise why would Vivian want to return the funds. Unless they could break up the bank itself and make one division hold bad bank funds which would allow them to keep salaries at their bank high and the poor shmuck who ran tha bad bank would have to except funds and a 500k salary. David Vivian typical Barak Obama supporter

aquarius2 · 10 months ago

I thought it was stated that banks that have already received TARP money were exempt from the new pay restrictions so this doesn't make sense.

MichaelS · 10 months ago

Chris, I don't see the problem here, am I missing something?
This is a GREAT thing -- let companies who need the help agree to restrictions. Once that help is no longer needed, they SHOULD re-pay it, and then they're free to do as they wish. The companies win (they stay afloat in a crisis, they recover from that crisis, and now go about their business), the taxpayers win (they get their money back, but while their money is at risk, the company has restrictions on it), and the country wins (we avoid a bank meltdown and an economic disaster).
When a bank lends you money for your home, you agree to certain restrictions (you have to keep it insured, pay your taxes into an escrow, you can't turn it into a commercial property, etc.) but once they're paid back it's your house and you can do as you please. Same thing here.

sukabi1 · 10 months ago

not quite... we still don't know the details of the deals Paulson made with any of the banks that took our green... and remember, Paulson went straight from an executive level job at Goldman Sachs to Treasury Secretary and within a year of that move (while the deals he made at Sachs were still perculating) proceeded to oversee the largest handout of taxpayer money to banks (including Sachs) that has ever happened.... and he did it WITHOUT anyone checking the details of the "loans"...

so yeah, there needs to be a bunch of scrutiny prior to these "loans" being paid back and the banks being released from their obligations... we might literally have bought bags of dogshit for a couple billion dollars...

Robert Phillips · 10 months ago

Just because they pay it back doesn't mean we have to quit looking into what they did with it. Let them pay it back. Then if they did something illegal go after them for that.

sukabi1 · 10 months ago

and what has been the track record for prosecutions of defrauding the government over the last 8 years??? It's going to take quite a while to root out the Bush appointees that let this shit go on... and so far, the Obama team doesn't seem to have the stomach to hold even the worst of the worst accountable...

A prosecution for any wrong doing is much more likely to happen if they currently have a finger in the taxpayer pie...

SCLiberal · 10 months ago

"...so far, the Obama team doesn't seem to have the stomach to hold even the worst of the worst accountable"
They would if Americans would take to the streets like they are in Europe. But we are content to sit in our homes, bitching online and making an occasional phone call to a congress critter.

lucky hussein · 10 months ago

problem #1: they apparently are a 'bank', but they are unregulated
#2: are we getting interest or anything on this loan? If they can pay it back so quickly, we shoud be...

sukabi1 · 10 months ago

I think their wanting to repay the money quickly probably has more to do with behind the scenes deals / price points that their former employee Hank Paulson got them as Treasury Secretary and avoiding too much scrutiny on that than it does in avoiding some restrictions... but the 500K compensation cap if they dip in for more can't be sitting well for these "Kings of Wall Street" either...

catdance · 10 months ago

Wall Street has WAY too much influence on our government in way too many areas. I was incredibly disappointed that my new Congressman Jim Himes -- a former Goldman-Sachs VP -- chose Jason Cole, a lobbyist for UBS, as his Chief of Staff. His District Director in Bridgeport, CT is a former Managing Director at Bear Sterns, a disappointing choice to those who had hoped he'd name someone more familiar with and sympathetic to the issues of those Connecticut citizens who *aren't* traders, bankers and Gold Coast McMansion-ites.

And then Himes gets himself on the Financial Services Committee. Yeah. I voted for Change, but I don't have much faith now that my Congressman is going to be any kind of catalyst in that area.

How are we supposed to believe Congress is working on our behalf when the lobbyists and financial sector employees have burrowed so deeply into the everyday workings of that body? Given that, why are we surprised when these guys play our government like a fish on a line, at our expense?

tbhull · 10 months ago

The statement that they are paying the TARP money back early to avoid vbeing subject to pay restrictions is simply incorrect. The flaccid pay restrictions anounced by the administration only apply to companies that take TARP money in the future, not those that have aleady taken it.

SCLiberal · 10 months ago

This tells me that the "crisis" wasn't.

1jarrod · 10 months ago

i find it hard to beleive they needed a bailout what is going on behind the scenes with this company all the other banks are still in distress and are on the brink of failing again here they are capable of paying back this TARP money strange huh "hank paulson" It is no wonder the bush administration is so hush hush birds of a feather flock together investigate and we may find a good some of our money that copperfield couldn't make dissappear. Goldman Sach top executives have made several apperances on news networks explaining that they are or were in dire need and now these new provisions and they want to pay this money back. NOW do we as a country want to invest with this company who used us I DON"T

1jarrod · 10 months ago

i posted my comment on my own basis and then continued to read the other post and i am finding that we americans really need to start standing up to this government and stop these politicians from ruining our lives we hired them we can fire them

bob_h · 10 months ago

"Goldman specifically was the subject of intense rumors last fall and many questioned their ability to survive the credit crisis that had taken down Lehman."

There is simply no question Goldman would have followed Lehman without the reclassification as a bank eligible for TARP funds and Fed loans.

I just wish there were some way to boycott the likes of Goldman as you could do with most commercial banks and insurance companies.

LeftCoastOracle · 10 months ago

So all that "the sky is falling" screaming was just so much blather I guess. They absolutely have to have the money so long as their personal income isn't restricted. But if we insist they get only 1/2 a million a year suddenly they don't need the loan after all.

Jdavid56 · 9 months ago

The TARP money is a great deal for the Govt. and a bad deal for MS and GS. Take MS TARP for example. $10B cash infusion from the treasury in exchange for preferred stock with a 5% (per year) coupon rate. So MS pays the treasury 5% and the treasury borrows the money back from selling T-Bills at 1.5% resulting in a spread of 3.5% they can pocket as long as rates stay down. And who sets rates? You guessed it. Another Govt. agency...the FED. In Dollars it costs MS $500,000,000.00 annual interest for the TARP money, the T-Bills cost the Govt. $150,000,000.00. That leaves a tidy profit of $350,000,000.00 each year for the government on the MS money alone. Yet, when you hear the news all you hear about is how we taxpayers are bailing them out.